Digital fabrication = collaboration

The EPFL and the lapa (laboratoire de la production d'architecture) was host to architecture students from the École Spéciale d’Architecture Paris this past weekend for a weekend workshop on "digital construction". The visitors were at the EPFL to collaborate with the architecture students in the lapa-DD+P (Digital Design + Production) course, led by Russell Loveridge, on the construction of a digitally designed and fabricated pavilion. The 36hr workshop was an exercise in fabricating architectural pieces, and then assembling them (like a big puzzle) to create the digitally designed whole, and it made extensive use of the digital fabrication machines in the lapa-lab. The resulting structure was made from 50 unique geometric pieces of cut and folded aluminum - which when bolted and riveted together created an "irregular dome structure".
The dome had a very short exhibition at the Rolex Learning Center for a few hours on Sunday afternoon before it was packed up for travel back with the students to Paris. The dome will be on display for the next two weeks in the main foyer of the École Spéciale d’Architecture Paris.